


9/10ths of the law

by cloudtalking



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Demons, Drinking & Smoking, Multi, Nonbinary Neil Josten, andrew thinks of the demon as an “it” for a while, involuntary smoking??, matt gives good hugs, prompt - possession, second person!!, thea is actually terrifying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 10:52:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cloudtalking/pseuds/cloudtalking
Summary: you’re feeling sick for what has to be the upteenth time since you realized that whoever you were kissing on that roof, it wasn’t kevin.(you pull away, though not before biting hard enough into his lip that it breaks and bleeds down his chin.“you’re not him,” you say, although it reminds you of the single time in middle school you were stupid enough to fuck with hallucinogens.“what are you going to do about it?”)





	9/10ths of the law

**Author's Note:**

> im back by unpopular demand w this (rlly late fic) for the yalitnet creation event!!! pls enjoy!!

the thing in kevin’s body looks at you and doesn’t quite smile, but you know what his face looks like when he’s biting one back. “what are you going to do about it?”

that’s the question you don’t have the answer to. you have knives sheathed close to your skin, muscle memory of violence renewed every sunday, biting words on your tongue from years of them being thrown back at you. what you don’t have is a solution, because no matter how ironclad the shackles of your promises are, they’ve never been unbreakable.

you’ve never broken a promise before.

“i’ll find a way,” you say, and it carries the same weight. 

the thing laughs now, strange coming from kevin’s throat. he’s never laughed like that at you. 

you punch him in the face, because even if it is kevin’s he deserves it, but kevin is fast and the thing knows how to dodge.

“better luck next time,” it says with his mouth, turning your stomach something like blasphemy, and disappears.

it’s two in the morning and you’re sitting on the roof alone, and everything you know is a lie.

 

you stay awake until you leave for practice, in which case you’re asleep in the goal half the time regardless. the thing inside of kevin does a convincing act at least, though in hindsight you realize it’s just because it too possesses the two main tenets of kevin’s personality; exy-junkie and asshole.

what’s less convincing is its ability to actually help the shitbag team you’ve signed up to ruin; baiting seth in a way that works him harder, adjusting allison’s grip, giving cleverly-hidden praise when it’s particularly necessary.

you’re feeling sick for what has to be the upteenth time since you realized that whoever you were kissing on that roof, it wasn’t kevin.

(you pull away, though not before biting hard enough into his lip that it breaks and bleeds down his chin.

“you’re not him,” you say, although it reminds you of the single time in middle school you were stupid enough to fuck with hallucinogens.

_“what are you going to do about it?”_ )

practice ends and wymack looks at kevin’s body like he sometimes looks at dan, proud and undeniably paternal. it flinches when wymack tries to pull him into a one-armed hug.

the satisfaction that brings isn’t enough to override your disgust, but it doesn’t hurt you either.

 

it’s a saturday and you have tutoring from two to three, mandated by the school in whatever subject you find to be lacking in the most. student athlete perks, compensating for the classes you miss traveling to games. perks is the wrong word.

you’ve never lacked in anything— academically, at least. you sign up for german tutoring and sleep through the hour, the TA that’s stuck dealing with you having long since been hitting her juul more than paying attention to the papers she’s supposed to be grading.

your fingers switch, but you’re a nicotine snob, and anything less than real fire between your teeth is indicative of being a pussy. 

katelyn has one. she prefers mango flavored pods and aaron is not so quiet when he tells nicky he doesn’t mind the aftertaste. you wouldn’t mind if she dropped dead. 

your hour up, you head to the roof and pull out a lighter. it’s there waiting for you, holding out a cigarette with the clear indication that you should light it. 

“kevin would shit his pants,” you say, lighting it despite yourself. you can’t kill it, not yet, but when you do you can see the horror in kevin’s eyes when you tell him he smoked. 

“he is,” it says. 

you freeze, though you try very hard not to look it. kevin is alive underneath the skin. you hadn’t realized you were doubting it until now.

“i don’t even really smoke,” it continues carelessly, taking a drag anyway. “he’s freaking out though, which makes it worth it.”

“why have cigarettes if you’re not going to smoke them?”

it shrugs, smiling about a joke only it and maybe kevin are in on. “i like the smell.”

“reminds you of home?” fire and brimstone, demonic hierarchies, your last ten entries into google.

“something like that.”

you spend the night thinking about how you should’ve done anything but have casual conversation with the monster who stole away your (nice ass)hole before remembering your own charming nickname.

it’s fitting then, that what pleasantries you extend to no one else are afforded to one of your own, a monster in human skin 

your nightmares are familiar, but tonight more than most you feel like you deserve them.

 

sunday is a day of routine, normalcy you’ve all but forgotten by now. renee’s knife nicks you just below the eye, too fast for you to dodge, and blood drips warm down your cheek like nothing else has since you were seven.

“something’s wrong.” it’s never a question with renee, though the words are always sympathetic. she never learned how to do small talk, too rushed in transforming from monster into angel.

“not with me.” you lash out with your fist instead of your blade for the satisfaction of it. it doesn’t hit home regardless. “what do you know about demons?”

renee knocks you down fast, punch to the gut forcing you to swallow back bile. she stands victorious over your crumpled figure, a vision of the truth she hides behind her kindness. 

“everything,” she says. “you’re screwed.”

she’s never lied to you.

 

you go out to lunch after, patched up best you can. you both skip to the back of the menu and order dessert, because you’re responsible adults and no one else needs to know.

“kevin’s possessed,” you say. “i’m getting him out.”

she sighs. “possession is a mutual agreement, andrew. if he didn’t want to be possessed, he wouldn’t be.”

that’s not what wikipedia told you. “he went behind my back.” you want to set him on fire.

“ask him before drawing any conclusions,” she urges. “if he doesn’t want to face you, that’s on him, but there’s no use getting angry without reason.”

you’re always angry, but that in itself is wrong. since you got off the pills in your sophomore year, you’re feeling everything at once and nothing at all. always mad-raging-manic-laughing-sobbing-crying-apathetic.

kevin was the one who helped you to adjust. kevin went and sold his soul to a demon without telling you. you feel like you just got broken up with over text.

you get back to the tower and drag kevin and his leech up to the roof by their collar, not bothering to say anything until you’re already up beyond where prying ears know better than to follow.

“andrew?” they ask. that vulnerability is human.

“giving your body away is a cheap way to get out of a promise.” 

their face is shocked before it’s amused, kevin into leech. “someone’s got blue balls.” 

“i’ll kill you both.” 

“you wouldn’t.”

“you already broke the deal, i can do whatever i want.”

“he didn’t,” it says, because of course a demon would know. “he just has to give you a reason to live, right? you already decided it was him, the fact that i’m here too doesn’t negate that.”

“our deal doesn’t concern you.”

_“our_ deal doesn’t concern _you.”_

you’re above the _i was here first_ arguments deemed unwinnable in kindergarten, but you still feel the childish frustration that lets you know it fits.

“then maybe we’ll make a deal,” you say even though the _maybe_ deserves to be omitted. “and it’ll come full circle.”

“oh?”

your heart is in your ears, accompanied by renee’s voice. _you’re screwed_ , she said. not yet. 

“let kevin be the surface personality or whatever the fuck, and i’ll help you find a solution to whatever reason it was you needed a body in the first place.”

“that’s a tall order,” the leech warns.

“it doesn’t matter.”

“oh? because it’s the devil i’m running from.”

you pause, because _what the fuck_ , but you’ve never taken back your words. “it doesn’t matter.”

it looks uncomfortable then, and you’d think it be kevin in control except kevin spends sixty percent of his time around you and yours uncomfortable and this is not the face he makes when nicky taunts him.

“we have to, uh.” it bites their lip. “seal it with a kiss.”

so kevin’s a cheater as well as a coward— though really he’s still dating thea, so you really can’t talk. at least she knows about it.

“yes or no?” you ask. kevin will tell his leech what you mean, or if he doesn’t it’s not that hard to figure out regardless.

it straightens up, clearly still uneasy but willing. it’s endearing up until the realization that these are blatant symptoms of nerves on a straight-up demon, and then it’s almost funny.

“yes.”

it’s the first time you haven’t gotten as good as you’ve given where kevin’s mouth is involved, but the leech has time to learn.

 

**(+1**

“so who’s the devil really?”

“excuse me?” the leech startles.

“beelzebub, satan, lucifer— which one?” 

it snorts. “none, it’s nathan.”

you raise an eyebrow, vaguely disappointed. “boring.”

“yeah, you humans like to embellish shit because of the simplicity. making up stories where there isn’t any.” it waves their hand around in some sort of habit it seems to have picked up from matt and nicky both. “i was named for him, you know?”

“your parents named you after the devil? sounds a bit too ambitious, considering.” you’d never considered asking the leech for a name.

it rolls its eyes in a way that’s less condescending and more exasperated. “my parents named me after my parents.”

you recover quick enough from that bombshell to quip, “you don’t look like a nathan, barely even a satan, really.”

“i’m not,” it says. “i’m a nathaniel.”

you give them a once over. “i’m calling you neil, now give me kevin back.” **)**

 

**(+2**

“neil’s the worst fucking backseat driver ever,” kevin complains from underneath you. you kiss him to shut him up, which never actually works with kevin the way it does when neil is in charge.

“they keep telling me to mark up your neck and shit,” he continues. “and really, it’s just because they don’t want enough to do with this kinda shit to do it themselves, but i just want you to know it’s not me being a possessive bastard.”

neil’s into kissing and not much else, though they’ve been working up to it. that they’ve been taking this much of an interest at all is surprising, even if the form of it is annoying.

you probably wouldn’t mind it if neil was the one biting bruises into skin, but that only makes it worse. 

“both of you, shut the fuck up.” **)**

 

**(+3**

thea muldani is a woman you’ve never had the pleasure of understanding, which is fine because you’ve really never understood women in general and never have you ever aspired to.

“you let kevin get hitched with a demon?” as if it’s your fault her boyfriend is an idiot.

“he did that all on his own,” you say, ignoring the noises of protest coming from the boy and company in her heavily muscled arms. “no accounting for taste.”

“hey,” neil interjects, and thea’s eyebrows raise enough that her usual elegant and poised manner is just this close to disrupted. they turn around in her arms, sporting a smirk that’s too defiant for kevin to ever wear on his own. “it’s your shit taste too, you know.”

thea gives neil a once-over. “mine too, i suppose.”

the look of betrayal that slides over their face is very clearly kevin’s. “thea, no.”

“thea, yes.” she counters. “you need to call more often, and i expect—“ 

“neil, they/them.” 

“i expect them to participate too.” 

when she leaves, andrew introduces neil to vodka unfiltered by kevin. they need it more than their host. **)**

 

**(+4**

matt has his arms wrapped around neil, drunk off his ass and channeling his inner octopus. 

“you’ve just— you’ve helped us so much, kev’,” he sobs. “we won because of you, yo. i’m so fucking happy? i love you, man.”

neil blinks. “what is this?”

“what, bro?”

“your— your arms.”

“a hug?”

neil breathes. “oh.”

matt starts bawling and doesn’t let go for the rest of the night. they look at you as if you would have the heart to save them. 

you grab the victory cake— orange, because this college is a trash heap— and leave. 

“andrew, no—” 

the door slams behind you. **)**

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧ i actually have a Lot of thoughts abt this but uhh here u go


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